All you need to know about the ridiculous proposition that employers should be able to access employees’ emails is summed up in this tagline - “Gillard: All Workers are Possible Terrorists”.
Is there any limit to the absurdity of intrusions into privacy and civil liberties in the name of national security?
Update: Terry O’Gorman from ACCL:
We have passed so many laws in the name of fighting terrorism that we’re at … serious risk of losing the balance between giving the intelligence services sufficient powers to fight terrorism while at the same time keeping longstanding and cherished civil liberties.
Not sure what has changed here. Emails into government departments have been collected, stored and accessed through FOI for years.
I, for one, need some detail because I have seen too many MSM ‘beat-ups’ of recent times.
Mmmph - fan-fucking-tastic.
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Firstly since when do employers have an obligation to act as agents of Australian security organisations?
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Secondly how much of a threat can anyone stupid enough to use work email to send ‘terrorist stuff’ about actually be. I think we can count on such persons to blow themselves up in their garages with astonishing regularity.
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Thirdly don’t we already have the SIGINT network for this?
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And last, and least - apparently Pine Gap is actually a rendezvous point for flying saucers.
One way around this is for the employees to use their own computers in their own breaks, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, then the emails won’t bother anyone. I think it is a ridiculous idea for the boss to read personal emails that the staff should not be wasting time on anyway.
Well, as I said earlier - what possible qualifications does “employer X” have in the national security field? None.
This suggests its more a workplace surveilling exercise - and should be treated as such by the ACTU.
And employers: what if yuo fail to discover teh employees activities. Could you be found liable/ negligent for your ‘poor surveillance’????
Thats right - you dont need that headache.
Rudd/ Gillard, welcome to your first humiliating backdown and loss. Serves you right too, this crap is D-grade amateur hour schlock.
Move on, and try to do better next time.
At this stage I’m with wpd on this one,as in “I, for one, need some detail because I have seen too many MSM ‘beat-ups’ of recent times.’
Particularly when I follow the link and see the media doing this sort of thing:
“Gillard backs workplace ’snoop’ laws [Headline]
Proposed laws to allow companies to snoop on their workers’ emails are needed to protect vital electronic infrastructur
Note how Gillard does NOT use the word ’snoop’, as far as I can tell, yet it migrates from the journo’s paraphrase, and we don’t know how accurate that is, into the headline as a direct quote, which it is not.
Suspicious.
Frankly i don’t trust the MSM to accurately report such and I would want to see the original material.
Terry reckons we’re at at “serious risk of losing the balance between giving the intelligence services sufficient powers to fight terrorism while at the same time keeping longstanding and cherished civil liberties.” Where’s he been hiding? The balance was lost a long time ago, and surely he knows it. And, just in case you’re not convinced…
Can anyone tell me what is actually being proposed? Has anyone seen the draft Bill? Or is this simply a trial by rumour based on a MSM report?
Lefty E, I take it you know that your work email is stored and has been for years and is subject to FOI?
FOI is a public process, subject to regulation, which can be objected to (eg including *privacy* grounds). Spot the difference.
Try to access anyone’s emails under FOI on public interest grounds and see how far you get.
Would any company legally be able to survey all emails sent from and to their system? Surely any IT department could examine incoming and outgoing emails… especially if this is stated in the company’s policy of IT use.
Just when I give up on watching the Packer Puppets on the Today Show because I can’t bear their matey sexism they put on JG and have her break the spy story of the year! This is what I get for switching to Koshie, who is infinitely more entertaininmg and helped provide Red Kav with his original fan base.
As I’ve remarked on another thread this is outrageous. Is it pure coincidence we suddenly get this homeland security crap shortly after Kev returns from the Uk and Bush’s 1984 Amerika? I don’t think so. Why didn’t Kev have the guts to announce it himself?
I image that terrorists TYPE MESSAGES IN ALL CAPS LIKE THIS and this will make them easy to spot.
“Is it pure coincidence we suddenly get this homeland security crap shortly after Kev returns from the Uk and Bush’s 1984 Amerika? I don’t think so.”
Yep, Paul, i bet he is finding it mighty difficult to sit down. And notice how he is running away from the olympic torch relay in Canberra. He is leaving that to young underling.
When the federal government has legislation passed to require them to, just as it requires them to collect taxes for it under the PAYG legislation.
I think that the concern would be incoming emails with attachments containing viruses, worms or trojan horses.
I doubt that our SIGINT capacity could handle this.
I am with wpd and hannah’s dad on this. I want to see the detail of the legislation. If it’s restricted to a narrow group of organisations with responsibility for essential infrastructure that could be vulnerable to cyber-attack that is one thing (though, as Andos, observes they already should have the right to scrutinize their employees’ emails under their company policies on IT use) that is one thing but to have it for every ice-cream shop and chicken parlour that has a computer connected to the net is another.
Jaques Chester at Club Troppo rang the AG’s department:
The Rudd government’s policies regarding privacy, the law and the internet are absolutely lacklustre. If you’re a technocrat, every problem looks like it can be solved with technology. The problem is that these boneheads don’t understand what the internet actually *is*.
SJ;
Yes. It seems that the main crime here is ignorance and misunderstanding: McClelland in the first place, journalists in the second place, and Gillard throughout the whole shemozzle. Linking it to national security was a retarded attempt to “look tough”, I’m guessing.
I’m happy to admit that it might have been a media beatup, but it does beg the question of why Gillard was defending it!
If so, then what on earth was Gillard babbling about, with her own two lips?
I got another theory: maybe they’re just backing down after realising what Kandrews-like idiocy they had just proposed.
Amateur hour, either way.
Anyway, it is starting to look like a Julia stuff up. Having done so well for seventeen days she looks to have dropped the ball on the last day.
I’m just having a guess here, but what I think caused all this is:
1) a report last week that a US security expert was able to hack into some US utility company, which prompted question from journos about the security of Oz Systems.
2) there’s an existing task-force in Oz, which the A-G and Gillard were aware of, looking at security of banking, water, energy, etc.
Both (1) and (2) are true. The guess part is:
3) The A-G and Gillard were unaware of (1), and when they were asked questions about it, answered as if they were questions about (2).
I just don’t get either the story or the outrage. My employer has monitored my emails and internet usage for years. Staff get regular reminders that it’s happening. And why the hell not? I’m acting as their agent.
Is anyone seriously suggesting that if your boss asks to see the email you sent a customer, because there’s been a complaint, you have the right to refuse? Or that if there’s an accusation you’ve been downloading porn that you have the right to deny access to the browser history on your employer’s computer? Ridiculous suggestions. What next - your employer can’t copy the files you’ve made on the employer’s computer in the employer’s time? You’re an employee for god’s sake with a duty to obey, not a freelancer on some frolic of your own. If you don’t like it, go work as a contractor.
The ABC ran the story on the 7.30 news. It made no sense at all, so no surprises there. And if Gillard added to the confusion as has been suggested, I’m disappointed in her. I thought she was one of the smart ones.
This will be another tool in the hands of the bosses targeting workers who use email etc to organise industrial action. Nice of Gillard to equate strike action with terrorism. Social Democracy shows its fangs once again…
I think the terrorism angle is a bit of furphy and I don’t see a problem with employers monitoring emails that an employee sends using the employer’s computers, network and bandwidth. There are plenty of free email services out there for people to use as an alternative. It really is rather poor form to use your employer’s email address for personal use and you risk accidentally giving the impression that you speak for them when you don’t mean to.
Most companies out there would have virus scanners which would automatically read people’s emails and I imagine there are sysadmins that have access to most people’s emails if only to be able to debug problems with the system.
Email isn’t secure even when you can trust the systems at either end. If you really want privacy, encrypt it using computers only you control. There is plenty of free decent encryption tools out there.
Why don’t the unions just setup an email address for each of their members and contact them that way? Its not rocket science.
I would urge those who see this announcement as a gaffe, a media beat up or as ‘normal practice’ being overstated to think again. It was the Rudd government’s first announcement of anti-terrorism laws. True, it does have the feel of the policy-a-day soundbite that were a hallmark of New Labour in Britain. And hopefully it’ll become chip wrapper in the same way. But the very ennunciation, and the citing of ‘national security’ as a reason to change the law is troubling.
On a superficial, political level it suggests the continuation of Howardite authoritarianism. More importantly it reflects the normalisation of ‘terror/national security’ as the paradigm around which we should conduct our relationships, in this case, in the workplace. (Anyone read the news from England this week about a local council using anti-terror laws to spy on a 3-year-old trying to get a nursery place?)
Demanding that companies actively fight the war on terror is another way to detract from asking whether there really is a ‘threat’, and if there is, why it is there. Like Howard’s “Be Alert But Not Alarmed” propaganda and the ‘national security hotline’, it demarcates between ‘everyday crime’ and ‘terrorism’, and puts the onus on ‘all of us’ (here employers/managers) to participate in this ‘war’.
The only pressure to formalise the kind of snooping that Ken Lovell is happy to be subjected to as an ‘agent’ (shouldn’t that be ‘vassal’?) comes from lobbies with symbolic and financial interest in prolonging the security threat charade.
What bilko said!
Kim, I think you and Bilko are both wrong. Ken is correct as to the law in NSW. Dunno about the other states.
Bilko Says:
This is just ranting nonsense.
If the government wanted to monitor emails for terrorism related reasons, there’s no need to ask all the companies to do it. Not only is it the wrong way to go about it - they’d miss a lot just because of lack of competent capability and the company level, but its a whole lot easier just to get the ISPs to do it instead. Just get them to plug a magic black box in at every major isp.
I’d imagine that the major reasons want the right to access employees email would be concerns over things like corporate espionage or corruption and for situations where there is harassment in the workplace.
The case of Faheem Lodhi is relevant here. Some of the evidence in this disgraceful conviction was from his workplace - aerial photos of ‘targets’. The jury found him not guilty of this charge.
[link]
Omg, if work emails are monitored, then I am toast!
Secretary is always sending me racist, sexist, or bad taste religious jokes.
“It was the Rudd government’s first announcement of anti-terrorism laws.”
Can you provide a link to this ‘announcement’ please bilko?
“The only pressure to formalise the kind of snooping that Ken Lovell is happy to be subjected to as an ‘agent’ (shouldn’t that be ‘vassal’?)”
If an employer observes the work of an employee it’s known as ’supervision’, not ’snooping’. Using email and the internet is an essential component of many people’s work so employers observe it as part of the supervisory process. I really don’t understand all the righteous outrage. Of course employees don’t have the right to privacy about how they do their work. They’re required to comply with organisational policies and procedures and their work will be monitored to ensure that they are complying. That’s what supervision is.
“I’d imagine that the major reasons want the right to access employees email would be concerns over things like corporate espionage or corruption and for situations where there is harassment in the workplace”
Great goddlemighty employers want the right to read workers’ emails to make sure they’re doing their jobs properly. Why is that so hard for people to understand?
KL,
If its the employers want the right to read e-masil to ensure employees are doing their job properly, and the practice is currently going on on company computers how and why did the Goverment get involved with all this as a national security issue?
Oh, maybe I’m just dumb. Anyway, I agree with Bilko.
Check out TISN and Critical Infrastructure Protection. If this bill (as yet undrafted afaik) pertains to this then it’s about protecting corporate networks (not all, just CIP partners) against mailed-in software attacks. There is a bill before the HoR dealing with this protection for government networks.
Oh, what fun! In the first place, whose email account is it, anyway? Does anyone here honestly think employers should not have access to email accounts where they suspect harassment, fraud, abuse of the system, timewasting or theft of intellectual property? If the system runs up a red flag in relation to the commission of a crime, what would any reasonable employer do?
Kim now concedes it may have have been a beat-up (naughty Julia and MSM), despite her own description: “the ridiculous proposition that employers should be able to access employees’ emails …”
Perhaps those who put blogging in the vanguard of a media revolution where ‘citizen journalists’ will bury the ‘gatekeepers’ in the MSM would do well to avoid the appearance of slavishly recycling their product and compounding their errors.
The link is the first news story that quotes Gillard: “Our technology is a big infrastructure issue these days,” Ms Gillard said. “If our banking system collapsed, if our electronic system collapsed, obviously that would have huge implications for society. So we want to make sure they are safe from terrorist attack.”
I don’t know if the proposed changes to the Telecommunications Act have been drafted yet, but I expect if they made the announcment they probably have some policy wonk working on it. An anti-terrorism law is anything justified as such and which uses the word terrorism. Clearly this government believes that it can continue the notion of terrorism as separate from ‘normal crime’.
I understand Ken Lovell’s point that this is just about getting up to date with technology. But as Paul Burns says, why did they frame it as a national security issue? Surely companies would have a duty of care to report any criminal activity in the workplace, and as several have pointed out here, they already monitor electronic communications to some extent.
So what makes it different? I return again to the “Help protect Australia from the terrorist threat” campaign. For example, one sees that some shady characters spend time late at night shifting boxes in and out of a lock-up garage. It looks suspicious, like a crime might be taking place. Do I call the police or the national security hotline? The “threat” is unspecified, insinuated, so in the end people will probably fall on racist assumptions to make that decision. This could elevate a simple stolen goods case into one of ‘terrorism’.
Likewise at the workplace - someone who decides to get their news from Youtube rather than mainstream media - say they want to look at a story on Iraq that is sympathetic to the resistance - are no longer doing something acceptable like reading the sanitised Fairfax or Murdoch reports, but actively trying to find out different sides of the story. They could be suspected of a crime far worse than looking at websites during work hours.
Mr Coffee at 33 is on the money. The Link is well worth a read.
Julia messed up.
“I promise we are not interested in the email you send out about who did what at the Christmas party, what this is about is looking at our critical infrastructure.” Ms Gillard told the Nine Network.
How bloody reassuring is this. In other words, “in combination with your boss we will discreetly not look at the personal stuff”. It would be quite good to clear up what email accounts we are talking about here but it sounds like privacy while accessing your hotmail, while at work, would be a no no. Same for personal phone calls at work or what you might say to someone while in the company bog?
What she says is pretty ominous.
Re the Trusted Information Sharing Network.
Mmmmm…. the irony is delicious. They can’t even set up their web certificates properly. Selecting “members” for a secure login gives…
“There is a problem with this website’s security certificate.
The security certificate presented by this website has expired or is not yet valid.
Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server.
We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this website.”
TISN = This Is Serious, Nanna
Bernard Keane in today’s Crikey:
Darin: apparently it expired on the 17th February, 2008. Definitely not a good look. Apparently, the certificate was issued by the USERTRUST network to the Defence Signals Directorate… ok then.
Have you noticed howe it’s always Julia who’s left to announce this sort of thing?
I’ve given an updated account of how it seemed to happen: [link]
Under normal circumstances supervisors can just ask for employees to CC them on emails. If they can’t even get that right then there are bigger problems
I’d add that data mining is one other reason that employers would want to be able access employees work emails. You can for example help identify experts in various areas by having computers look at what people email/IM each other about. Yes, it could also be used for evil but at the same time has a legitimate use, especially in large companies where it can be difficult to find out who to ask for help.
Jacques Chester’s summary is on the money. An appeal to authority via Crikey does not make the OP any more respectable.
Well, why is the government not putting the facts on the table? This story’s continuing to run through last night and today with no sign of any clarification or denial from Ministers.
They’re still waiting for permission from Kev?
Maybe, unlike the Howard Government, they’re not used to lying yet, so when the sh*t hits the fan, they’re a bit like rabbits caught in car headlights?
Paul Burns says:
Naaaaahhh. That cannot be it. Obviously.
The NSW Privacy Commissioner agrees with Ken Lovell.
The existing situation in NSW is as follows:
I think that what the Privacy Commissioner says might be incomplete, because I recall some measure introduced a few years ago where employees had to be notified, but I could be wrong if that requirement has subsequently been removed, or was only being discussed and never actually became law.